PNM says more lines, generators, needed to prevent another blackout

SANTA FE (AP) - Public Service Company of New Mexico says more small power plants that serve local areas or more high-capacity power lines are needed to prevent another massive blackout in the state.

"We have just about run out of small things we can do," Roger Flynn, PNM vice president for gas and electric services, said Tuesday at a Public Regulation Commission hearing.

Earlier this month, a fire in the Four Corners area shorted out three major transmission lines, leaving 1.6 million people in New Mexico and El Paso, Texas, without electricity from a half-hour to six hours.

PNM's five-year plan calls for building another transmission line, which would create another route for electricity to customers, Flynn said. He said, however, PNM has no interest in resurrecting a plan to build a high-capacity transmission line through the Jemez Mountains rejected in 1995 by the Public Utility Commission. The PRC replaced that commission.

PNM spokesman Don Brown said the company is looking at a couple of other possible routes, and that after a route is chosen it will take five to seven years to build the transmission line.

A private generating plant in Albuquerque expected to be on line next month would not have been affected by the blackout, Flynn said. He said such private generating plants could allow the company to postpone building new transmission lines.

"It would be up to businesses coming in to take that market risk" of building new power plants, Brown said.

In the short term, Flynn said, PNM is exploring the possibility of clearing vegetation around lines instead of just trimming it back. He said that solution could have environmental complications because it would destroy habitat for animals in some areas.

Flynn said he has been asked why the transmission lines were so close together.

"People really don't like transmission lines," he said. "To the extent you can encumber the land in one place instead of many places, that makes it better for some people."

Energy lawyer Steven Michel said during a public comment period: "It's not proper to blame regulators and other for the severity of the outage." He also said building more power lines "would more likely invoke PNM into a false sense of security."

Flynn said another transmission line would have helped, but added the probability of another similar electricity outage is remote.

"For 30 years, we haven't had this happen," he said.

Flynn said he's happy with the quickness with which the utility restored electricity but described the mood among employees on the job as the shutdown spread across the state as "a quiet panic."

The company expects to absorb the cost of replacing on one of the wooden towers and other repairs without a rate increase, he added.

Flynn also said PNM has received about 1,200 calls claiming damage caused by the power outage to televisions, videocassette recorders and other electrical machines.

"We're not sure the power system caused all these problems," he said.

PNM isn't prepared to announce its position on claims until investigations of the incident are complete, he said.

An investigation into the fire will be completed in the next week or two, he said, and an investigation of how the substations performed during the outage will be complete in the next few months.

"It was not a controlled burn," Flynn said of one of the initial reports on the cause of the fire. "It was a fire started by someone ... at the edge of that field."